This Sunday the post is putting on an event that’s a transplant from my hometown, Miami. They can call it the “Post Hunt” if they want but they’re not putting anything past me. This is the TROPIC HUNT, baby, and all the borderline unhinged goofyness that this Dave Barry/Gene Weingarten/Tom Schroder creation always brings with it.

If you want some insight, Tom, Gene, and Dave did an online chat earlier in the week to talk about it, and here’s a snip.

Cube City: The instructions don’t say anything about tools, but answering one of the three video puzzles (almost) requires a calculator, and the final puzzle would benefit from a notepad if not a portable text editor. There’s no way anybody will be able to win without writing down and doodling/calculating/anagramming/whatever, so shouldn’t a well-equipped team bring a thermos full of vodka martinis?

Tom Shroder: No THAT is the kind of thinking that will go far in the Hunt. Keep up the good work.

If you want to read a little about the kookyness that past TROPIC HUNTs have involved and the kind of puzzles teams are faces with, an old cow-orker of mine is a little obsessed a fan and runs a website with a pretty comprehensive archive of past Tropic Hunt details.

My only concern is that this town may not be up to the level of controlled insanity that the Tropic Hunt involves, not to mention the long slog through crappy weather, dangerous streets, dilapidated city buildings and newspaper insanity. Sure, we have killer bus drivers, but the Hunt was invented in Miami during the 80s - you ducked hails of gunfire to solve puzzles then. You bunch of softies? You may not be able to take it. Witness the question asked by one of our locals who clearly wouldn’t have been up for an three hour event in Miami, where Gene’s answer would have been a given.

Arlington, Va.: Dude. What if it rains?

Gene Weingarten: You get wet.

See you at the Tropic Hunt.

We’ve talked about meters before. You know the struggle. Sen. Levin (D-MI) pushes for meters, and they magically appear on the Mayor’s agenda, much to the delight of many of the riders-to-be. There’s something fair about time-and-distance meters that seems lacking from the Zones system.

My friend Ian took the train back from New Jersey where he’d been holed up for work for a couple days, and caught a cab home from Union Station so he could take his final exam. Here’s where it gets good. The cab’s not metered. Or, at least, that’s how it started. Being in the cab awhile, Ian noticed that his cabbie did, in fact, have a meter installed, it just wasn’t on.

When he asked the cabbie what the deal was, the cabbie said, “I’m not turning it on ’til June 1st.”

If you run into this, feel free to submit a complaint to the DC Taxi Commission, as they’re operating in violation of the law. Don’t know how to complain? This article from the Taxi Commission has all of the details. Get the cab number, the cabbie’s name, and the license plate of the cab, and then write it all out. Used to be you had to send a physical letter, but now you can email your complaint to dctc3@dc.gov.

The Washington Post has indicated that the Tarpon Springs authorities have ruled her death a suicide and released her suicide note. The Smoking Gun has included actual images of her suicide notes, and they’re heartbreaking. Particularly sad is a part WaPo didn’t comment on, a paragraph in the letter to her mother that says “There is a little surprise waiting for you in the BOA account. Please use the monies for final arrangement & various account settlement.” Before some cursory Googling I’d have wagered good money that there’s no way the people who prosecuted her for racketeering and money laundering will fail to seize those assets. Over at Justice League, however, blogger SP Biloxi has posted that the defense and has already filed motions to abate and the prosecution had no objection. After all that’s gone on, including the death of Brandy Britton, everything has just been wiped away like it never happened.

Unless you’re Randall L. Tobias, former AIDS czar, Senator David Vitter or think-tank guru Harlan K. Ullman, named as clients. Or Lt. Commander Rebecca C. Dickinson, identified as an employee of Palfrey’s and compelled to testify… and suspended by the Navy, despite the immunity the prosecution granted all the women called to the stand, preventing them from exercising their 5th amendment rights and staying silent. Or Rhona Reiss, 63, also publicly identified as a former escort. Or any of the other 11 women called to testify by the prosecution. The other 119 women identified in Palfrey’s records may be safe, since the judge ordered those portions of the records sealed, and thankfully we all know that information mandated as private never leaks out.

What a waste of money and life, all to prosecute a woman who paid all her taxes on the money she made connecting two consenting adults with each other.

If she’d been running a ItsJustLunch franchise and collecting thousands of dollars from both parties she was connecting up, she’d still be alive and doing business.

If she’d been Craigslist, connecting people who want to have sex. then the shitbags at rightwingpundits.com, who I will not dignify with a link and the search engine credibility that conveys, wouldn’t have a page up about one of the case’s identified escorts, along with a picture of her and details about her academic history and family life. Oh, and a swipe at how attractive she is.

But hey, she had it all coming and nobody to blame but herself, right? After all, if it’s illegal then it must be wrong, right Mrs. Loving?

We got to head out to the dump in Fairfax County a week or so ago to bid final adieu to a couch that had far outlasted its meager existence. It was just $5 to drop the couch on the cement slab and watch as the awesome garbage hauler equipment just smashed up all manner of trash and shove it down into was appeared to be an endless pit of forgotten furniture, and various other bulk trash.

They’re very meticulous about how you get to dispose of things, there’s a man at the booth where you pay who makes sure it’s the right kind of thing to go to the dump, or whether or not it’s household hazard waste and belongs in the special part of the dump where they store those fluorescent tubes and bulbs, or if it’s a dead refrigerator, what they do with the coolant tanks.

I caught this sign and started to wonder…what sort of citizens can you dispose of at the West Ox Road Facility? Do they have to be Fairfax County citizens? Can I pay extra to drop off Arlington County citizens for proper disposal? Do out of state citizens cost extra?

Citizens Disposal?! — Originally uploaded by tbridge

This reeks to me of some sort of graft problem. Like the originators of the project just hadn’t put some form of welfare in their initial proposal to run Metrorail tracks all the way out to Dulles Airport.

But, now that the final bribes and blowjobs have been given to the (in)appropriate people, US Department of Transportation is reversing its non-funding of the Dulles Rail Project. That means, if all the rest of the bribes and other corruption are properly completed on their schedule (included in Appendix B5 of the new plan), we should have a Metro link to IAD by approximately 2025.

Okay, more like 2015. Maybe. If we’re lucky.

With about 14 minutes left in the third period, the Caps are holding on to a 3-2 lead over the Flyers. C’mon guys - get through this one and you’re back and home where we can cheer you on.

Update: And now 4-2, that’s two Ovechkin goals in a row. Seven more minutes…

And 4-2 is the final score! Woohoo! Next up: do or die at the Verizon center tomorrow.

Heartbreaking.

That’s as good a word as any for Capital fans today, after last night’s loss to the Flyers. They now trail the surging Philly team 3-1 in the series.

By far, it was Washington’s best game of this year’s playoffs. But it fell short by a Mike Knuble goal in the second overtime.

I really thought the Caps would take this one away from Philly last night; I watched in awe as Ovechkin delivered a thunderous hit on Knuble in the early stages of the first period and saw that fire in him that reminded me of the last two weeks of the Cap’s regular season. The team was tight, calm, and focused.

It just wasn’t enough.

A less-than-stellar first period start didn’t derail the team, unlike the last two games, with the Caps shutting down the Flyer’s power play after practically giving them three penalties in a row early on. The lead changed hands all night, with Eminger netting his first playoff goal and giving the Caps the lead briefly in the third.

The Caps played hard - they led the game in hits, 38-29 - but the Flyers were ready for them. The lackluster showing last Sunday here in Game Two has really come back to haunt them. Ovechkin and the Caps now face elimination on Saturday, and the stats are not favorable. Philly is 15-2 all-time when leading a best-of-seven series 3-1. It’s rare for a team to roar back from being two games back and unless the Caps can dig deep and find the energy they had in the race to the playoffs, I don’t think they’re much longer for Round One. Winning three games in a row against a physical team that is peaking at the right time is a daunting challenge indeed.

Still, it’s a possibility, and I won’t count the Caps out yet. It’s not over until the final horn sounds.

8 ball, courtesy of jiariles

So the Capitals are sliding behind the playoff 8-ball. Hammered last night in Philly by a final score of 6-3, where Brière has lit a fire somewhere and Biron’s thrown up a Berlin-esque wall, the hometown hockey heroes has looked more like the ice-capades on a road trip.

Seriously.

Where’s the fire that exploded from this team in the third period of Game One? Watching Sunday’s game was like watching the Caps back in October, when the team was terrible and looking to beat Columbus down the standings.

Last night was marginally better, but only just.

The Caps got behind early on Sunday and never recovered; Ovechkin was double-teamed and his support cast was nowhere to be found. That’s not how you win playoff hockey - it’s how you give the opposing goalie a shutout. Guess what happened?

I’ll give Washington credit, they did try to stage another late rally, closing the gap to 4-3 on Laich’s goal at 4:34 remaining. But Philly rallied quick, with Mike Richards zinging Huet on a penalty shot less than two minutes later. Nail? Meet hammer.

Biron could’ve taken naps in his goal - the Caps had a total of 16 shots on the evening. Compare that to the final games of the regular season, when Caps opponents were seeing flurries of 30 and 40 shots.

Where have the Caps disappeared to?

Now, not all is lost. The series is only 2-1 in the Flyers’ favor. But they face another rough game ahead in Philadelphia before coming back to the Verizon Center. Which could be the Caps’ swan song…or not. Honestly, it’s really up to the rest of the team.

You can’t hang all the pressure on Ovechkin - though ineffective since his game-winning goal in Game One, he’s hardly at fault. The Flyers defense has been tightly focused on shutting him down (even after losing Timonen), and they’ve done so with frightening ease. In times like this, it’s dependant upon the superstar’s supporting cast to step up and make a difference. We know they can - we saw ample evidence of it in the last month of the regular season. Semin, Kozlov, Federov, Backstrom - pretty much non-existent forces on the ice right now. I’ll give a pass to Mike Green - his sniper shots are still scary as heck, as we saw last night.

So don’t despair quite yet, Caps fans. If the Flyers dominate to another win on Thursday, however…

Maybe the Pope could swing by the Verizon Center on his out-and-about birthday tour and toss out a few blessings…

IMG_5190 copy, courtesy of island_explorer

I love playoff hockey.

Yes, yes, I know. It’s not quite yet time for the Cup race to begin - but this last week of the regular season might as well be the start of the playoffs.

It’s been a while since the NHL’s had such a tight race down to the wire, and the local boys have just as much at stake right now as any of the other five teams also fighting for their playoff lives - and the extra money those games bring into team coffers.

Carolina, Ottawa, New York (Rangers), Boston and Philadelphia can all see their playoff races end in success or failure alongside the Washington Capitals in these final days. And it may well come down to the final minutes of the final games this weekend before the playoff picture is settled once and for all.

The Capitals have been spectacular of late. Arguably, since the trade deadline. Since George McPhee pulled some magic out of the hat and snagged Huet, Federov, and Cooke for a fantastic end-season run, including a brilliant 5-1 series of games away from the Verizon Center, the Caps have looked 180 degrees different than the start of the season.

Scoreboard watching is about as interesting at Caps games as it is watching Huet stone opponents with spectacular saves.

I’ve got to hand it to Ovechkin - not only has the “Big O” pretty much nabbed the goal scoring and points titles, he’s led a remarkably mediocore team from the start of the year to a surging and dynamic playoff hopeful.

Now it is true I’m not a huge Caps fan, simply because of my (still strong) allegiance to the team of my youth. But I love great hockey above all else, and with a smorgasboard of games this week - many with playoff hopes on the line - I will be watching with interest the Caps final run of the season. Yes, they have to win all three home games against Carolina, Tampa and Florida PLUS see one of the five still in contention somehow implode in order to make it to Lord Stanley’s dance…. But I have to say, I’m fairly optimistic the Caps will see a return to the playoffs this year.

I’ll be attending Thursday’s game against Tampa Bay and looking forward to the thrill of playoff hockey. Even if just a taste of it.

It’s been too long, Washington. Let’s hope this year is the one that welcomes you back into the frozen elite.

OS Test 23, courtesy of YoLoPey

With Opening Day just six days away, Nationals Park is advertised as “nearly ready,” but what about the team that will take the field that night? Well, I wouldn’t hope for the playoffs, but there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic after Spring Training. I’m on record as saying the Nationals will finish over .500, and I stand by that. Here’s some of the questions you need to know the answers to as we get through the final Spring Training games:

Who’s our Opening Day Starter?

In past years, it’s been John Patterson or Livan Hernandez. This year it will be Odalis Perez. With Shawn Hill’s health in question, and neither Bergmann nor Chico anything resembling ready to be the #1 starter, the job falls to Odalis Perez, who was only signed by the team to a minor league contract at the beginning of the Spring. The remainder of the rotation as it stands will be Bergmann, Chico and Redding, for the time being. With Redding leaving the game with back spasms yesterday, the fourth slot will likely fall to Joe Lannan until Redding’s at 100% again.

Who’s On First?!

One of the big questions in the off-season was: With Nick Johnson AND Dmitri Young healthy, who’s playing first base?

If you have an answer, please someone either tell Stan Kasten or put it in the comments. The Nats just don’t seem to have one. Both of them are quality players, each with redeeming features. We know what Dmitri can do, we saw it in his All-Star season in 2007, which probably why Johnson got most of the starts this Spring, as his recovery is probably the most scrutiny. Johnson is also probably the more tradable of the two, as his age will be a certain mark in his favor. I can’t imagine either wanting to ride the pine, and with Zimmerman a lock up at third, it’s unlikely they’d be able to make that move, either.

So, Who are these guys?!

The Nationals have proven one thing over their short stay in DC: Anyone the fans like gets shown the door pretty quickly. Livan was gone after a couple seasons, Jamey Carroll was traded to the Rockies, despite every team needing a Jamey Carroll, and of course there’s the release of Patterson this past week. New faces this year include emotionally-troubled outfielder Lastings Milledge (picked up in a trade for Brian Schneider and Ryan Church, both sentimental favorites), emotionally-troubled and criminally-susceptible Elijah Dukes, both of whom have behaved themselves in Spring Training, and put on a decently impressing display of hitting and defense. Each of them is a quality find, provided they don’t start getting arrested or shooting their mouths off in the local media. We’ll see.

Why are you optimistic?

Well, I’ve always looked on the bright side of…oh wait. You meant specifically. Here’s why: Great Defense, Improved Offense, and a new ballpark that will bring out the crowds. But generally, I figure the Nationals will do their damnedest to put up a winning season their first year in the new park. We won’t be the Mets, or the Phillies, but I think we can at least best the Braves. We’ll know in May if I’m being pollyanna, or realist.